March update to Lync Windows Store App now available

Lync Meeting presenters: this Lync update is for you! The most common feature request from our users is that they want the modern app to have more of the features available in the desktop app. We continue to listen to feedback and starting today, you can now manage your meeting participants from the modern Lync app.

In addition to new features, we also continue to improve the ease of use for Lync. We think you’ll like what we’ve done in this update. Here’s an overview of what’s new:

Manage meeting participants individually or as a group. You can mute a participant, send a private IM, view their contact card, promote to presenter or demote to an attendee. You can also invite more participants, mute all audience, and admit people to the meeting who are waiting in the lobby.

Manage meeting participants

Easily access conversation controls when you are in a call or meeting. All the controls are right at the bottom of the screen, which you can use to quickly mute/unmute your audio, view the participants, start or stop your video, or leave the conversation.

Easily access conversation controls

Use the new Meet Now feature to quickly start an impromptu meeting and collaborate on a subject that requires immediate attention- without having to schedule a meeting in advance.

Meet Now to start a new meeting

Pin your meetings list as a tile to your Start screen to easily see your meeting schedule. The tile lists up to three meetings on your calendar in the next twelve hours.

Pin the Join/Meet Now tile to your Start screen to easily and quickly join scheduled meetings or start a new Lync Meeting. If you have a Lync Meeting now or starting soon, tapping the tile opens Lync and joins the meeting. At other times, tapping the tile lets you start a new, ad-hoc meeting.

Meetings list and Join/Meet Now tiles on Windows Start screen

Enjoy improved functionality of screen readers voicing fly-out menus.

This update also has fixes for some problems that prevented a small number of users from signing in to Lync. If you’ve had sign-in problems, click Delete my sign-in info on the sign-in page after installing the update and try signing in again. If you continue to have problems, please contact your technical support team.

Click here for more information about this update. To see some of the other things we’re working on, check out the demonstration from the Lync Conference 2014 keynote. The video is here, and the demo starts around 17:30.

For most users of Windows 8.1, Lync will upgrade automatically within 24 hours. To get the update sooner, search for Lync and click Install. You can tell when you have the update because you’ll see a message box saying “We’ve updated Lync!” the next time you go to the app.

We are proud to bring you this new version of Lync and are excited to continue adding features, improve performance and make the app even better. Please send us feedback and give us a new or updated rating in the Windows Store, or provide comments to this blog post so that we know what you would like to see in future updates. Then keep an eye out for future updates; more features are coming!